Tata Steel's social responsibility predates regulations. THE LATE J.R.D. TATA ONCE SAID: "WHAT CAME FROM PEOPLE HAS TO GO BACK to the people many times over." Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives are nothing new for the Tata Group, which has been serving society even before the term CSR was coined. Over the past 14 years, flagship Tata Steel has, on average, spent nearly 2 per cent of its revenues on such activities. Last year, for example, the company spent nearly Rs 181 crore on its CSR initiatives. The goal of the CSR team is to empower people and focus their healthcare and hygiene in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, where the company has operations or is planning to set up new plans. Last year, it introduced double cropping, which enables farmers to earn an extra Rs 5,000 per acre of land. Then, Tata Steel provides money from its Rs 15-crore kitty to 413 self-help groups in these states to empower locals to start their own small-scale business like candle and agarbatti making. It targets one person from each family in the local villages for this. Apart from building parks, laying pipelines and other civic amenities, the company has undertaken environmental and ecological initiatives to bring down carbon emission and save energy. In 2006-07, the company's initiatives on energy efficiency helped it to reduce energy consumption to 6.720 Gcal/tcs (giga calories per tonne of crude steel) from 6.959 Gcal/tcs, thus, saving nearly around Rs 50 crore per annum. Its carbon emission also came down from 2.28 tonne per tonne of crude steel to 2.2 tonne.